


The Whole of It

by Venturous



Category: Trilogy (Midnight City-Reunion-Wait) - M83 (Music Videos)
Genre: Clairvoyance, Inspired by Music, M83, Other, Psychic Abilities, Sibling Love, transcendence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venturous/pseuds/Venturous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They thought they would have time. Time was all they had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole of It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizardbeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/gifts).



> dear giftee: I fell so in love with these videos, these children. I only hope I did a tiny smidge of justice to their cause.

Elizabeth, 14 years:

After school, I run, flying down the hill, away from the deadness of that place. I can’t wait to see you. I can’t wait to get free. It doesn’t matter who’s older, or younger. It doesn’t matter what my mother thinks. You are my soul, and together we know something, and are trying to discover just what.

That day they did the testing, I thought they knew. But it was only a game for them, a way to fill the time. Thank god they don’t get it, it’s better that they don’t.

My sisters, your brother, we run together across the town, wild and free, to the graveyard.  We dance, circling each other and the stones, then fall laughing in the leaves. Watch ravens soar overhead, tall oaks reaching their dark hands into the sky.

Across the road, surrounded by overgrowth a factory hides. How is it we have never seen that huge building? Tree of heaven, vines disguise it. I’ve been by here a thousand times and never noticed it.

 

We didn’t actually break that window; after crawling through the tangle of young trees and choking vines, we merely wiggled the glass free from its shriveled caulking and it fell free to the mossy floor inside. Then it shattered. Apollonia is smallest; we helped her wiggle through and unlatch the bolts to let us in.

This place, it’s a miracle, a parable of the future. Once people worked here, made things. They thought it was important! There is a building within a building, the office above the factory floor. Rusted file cabinets vomit their papers, snowdrifts of (now) meaningless marks. What is it that was so important?  That creaking chair is stained with sweat; someone banged their fingers on this rusted typewriter as if it mattered.

Under the windows a stack of boxes was piled the last time they made whatever they made here. (“Jiffy-Lift©” it says on the crumbling boxes. WTF is a JiffyLift?) Time has made these boxes irrelevant. When they put them here, they were the lifeblood of this place.  At one end of the stack, the boxes are browned with age, but intact. But the other end lies under a roof leak, and there is nothing left but a pile of rust and moss, new soil with green plants growing up to the light. Each box in-between is a stage of decay, or, read backwards, creation.

This place is a miracle. The whole story of life is here: organize, create, decay and return to dust, feed new life: the cosmos at work. We know, we can see. The light of our sun star pours in here and reveals the story. How can they not see?

 

The light in your eyes I recognize. We stand together in the abandoned space, beams streaming through windows browned with time. The five of us, strong together, aligned, wide awake and vibrating with connection, without words, raise our energy together, brighter than lightning.

In that holy light we practise together. We know the light is in us. What I can do, what we can do! We are so much more than the sum of our parts, we _are_ the miracle.

If only we could work all night, could stay here forever. If only we not have to pretend we’re kids, just kids who have to go home, go to bed.

From my bedroom window I send you Morse messaged with my flashlight, its quiet, and they think I am asleep.

 

But I’m remembering that roar, when, wrapped in the sparkle of twilight we stood on the roof and felt the earth turn. The roar of the light, our star a swirling burn as we fell backwards with our planet.  And in the dark world our light arose, shining and strong.

=====

 

Ian, 12 years

The light is inside of us, we know that. Love is our power, and will not be defeated. _He_ knows, we are fired with His love.

We go to church, and our parents think we’re being good. But we know the Light; it’s the holy light wherever you find it.

They can’t see what we see. They can’t see what’s coming, and may not even be alive when the cities crumble, when the vines cover all the factories. I used to try to wake them, make them listen to me. They can’t see it, the world they’ve poisoned, pretending everything is fine.

The world is becoming a wasteland, ashen, haunted. The zombies on TV are merely a prequel, a cute cartoon of the hollow souls we will all become, if we can’t wake up.

Yeah, as long as they think we’re just kids, we’re free.

But we’re running out of time.

=====

 

Kris, 8 years:

Oh, Elizabeth, you thought those tests didn’t matter. But some of them, they must have known! They’re looking for us.

They’ve got her! They took her!  When she collapsed, emptied of light, somehow they took her, _right out of her shell_.

They know more than we ever imagined. We have to save her. Come on, back to the rooftop, and we will stand together.

I never wanted this hate, I never wanted to fight. But they cannot have her, our world depends on it. Together, we must use the Light.

My God! They are using her against us!

THEY CANNOT HAVE HER.

Together, thank god we’ve trained, together, with me, NOW: we stand firm, we break their hold.

Call on the Light, the stars, and all the Wild things. Our world depends on this.

 =====

 

Sylvia, 11 years:

After that, we were fugitives. We lived on the run. The official stories were outrageous: “Children from two families lost in freak industrial accident!” and our parents disappeared, purportedly to live in seclusion from the hounding press.

We never realized it would fall apart so fast. We were prepared, but not for everything.

We moved from place to abandoned space, and in the bigger cities were amazed that the future was already unfurling.  I always thought it would come when I was older, that somehow I would get to grow up and have a family. This is my family, and it takes more than I have to keep body and soul together, on the run like this.  All of the pretty shiny things we used to care so much about are so much wreckage now. Living in the shadows we see the people, their souls devoured, descend into madness.

Elizabeth was cracking from the strain; she and Kris argued more and more. I always thought that if they were free to love each other, everything would be all right. But she kept advocating for going back, to making a compromise with them. Couldn’t she see, there was nothing to go back to? Our parents were, if not dead, as good as gone. We would be locked away, and away from each other, and ‘weaponized.’

I think I understood what was happening to her. As the oldest among us, she was becoming like them, she trembled with the pressure, as if she had to make everything okay. I think she was torn, between their world, and ours. It made me realize, so much of ‘growing up’ was getting brainwashed into settling for being less than who we were. I thought we’d have years to work, reach out and network with other kids, get more of a culture in place to work with. So there could be a revolution.

I never expected to be lost in a wasteland like this. I’m beginning to understand why she left us.

Kris wouldn’t hear if it, no compromise, no negotiations with those who sought to enslave us. They fought, bitterly.  It was devastation, for everyone, because it was originally their bond, their incredible love that drew us together, that made what we became possible in the first place.

One morning we awoke and Elizabeth was gone. We tried to find her in the light, we sent the birds to find her, but she disappeared into the city without a trace.

Whatever happened to her, she never betrayed us. I guess I should be grateful for that.

 =====

 

_You make me feel myself_   
_There's no more loneliness_   
_Only sparkles and sweat_   
_There's no more single fate_

Kris:

Don’t let them take you, love, oh, please, Elizabeth! Don’t let them blind you, your beautiful light, the taste of your sweet tongue. Please come back to me. I never thought I would have to do this alone. You were my reason for this, for everything.

Don’t forget! The world has its claws in you. Oh love, I’m lost, lost. The world is a ghost town, where have you gone?

I see you there, job, family, hiding behind the mask. Where is your soul? If I go back there, to that ruin, will I find you there, or did you really leave?

Don’t give up on us, please, my love, don’t give up.

We are waiting for you.

Come back to us.

=====

 

Sylvia:

Kris was devastated, but no less our leader. Apollonia went silent, began speaking only with the animals. She consulted with birds, had them searching for Elizabeth, but then there was more. Ian said he worked with her on some of it – they were organizing the animals, preparing them to survive. The wolves came to her.

I grew frightened. We were not the same force of life we had been when we were whole.

I know Liz tried to get the message out, but it was so garbled, and they wouldn’t let her, not really. I’d see her flicker on viewscreens in passing cars, pleading. Headlines called her tragic, insane.

Kris hardened. He stopped short of using his magic to kill, but he certainly didn’t show any mercy. He let the wolves have their prey.

I’m losing it, losing my grip. I see Ian getting thinner and sounding crazier – he’s leaving me, falling over some edge. Oh, god, please, I can’t lose him.

In the end, I don’t have to decide. I awake one morning with Ian in a crumbling church, and in the pink light of dawn I can see we’re on our own.

=====

 

Kris:

Where we’re going now, no one can follow. It’s better this way. Sylvia and Ian have each other, they will do the best they can. I have to go into the light, it’s calling me, and there is no turning back, not now.

While I go on, my heart’s sister will work here. I am in awe of her, sweet thing, her depth of wisdom. She has somehow tapped all the traditions. I believe the animals have taught her, and like them she speaks directly with the earth.  I watch her, reaching her light into the soul of the earth, the heart of the sea, the teeming life of the blood.

We’re still working together, it’s just so much lonelier now.

 

And when the firestorms began, we could not wait anymore. I let go, and soared upwards.

Take me, take me where you must, oh radiant light. I serve you , in service of all life I will go into the night sky.

Rising is extraordinary, the color, the light streaming over me. I can hardly stand it, it’s ecstasy, it’s tearing me apart. I can see the past, and the future all woven together in this incredible web. I felt how everything is connected. I could see the whole thing: everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen, like a perfect pattern laid out in front of me. 

I see you, Elizabeth, trying not to die inside, but you have fallen into forgetting.  Oh, love, time is rushing by; it’s streaming over us like sand, wearing and tearing, weathering your wild soul. All I ever wanted was to love you. I’m sorry there was so much more to do.

=====

 

Apollonia:

I’ve almost forgotten my mother tongue. I speak only to animals now, and even them, not so much. No need to speak, we just know.

I no longer fear the dead. My wolves protect me, guide me. We go where we must. They send the messages, and the birds come, they are the best network.

I saw Kris ascend. It’s almost funny, all that Sunday school, and it’s really so simple. Is Jesus laughing now? Well, unlikely, considering. 

I go to the desert, and speak with Water, water that is leaving us, drawing back, not feeding the insanity any longer. She takes me deep into the life blood water system. I am amazed how this connects every living thing! She shows me how the sea within, and without, is seamless and essential.  For if wet does not touch wet everywhere then we are truly only dust.

While I am there in her shimmering desert, I see/feel Kris on his journey, rising, soaring, then speeding through time. I catch flickers of our alternative lives, our interwoven lines of potential and actual. I see my sister fight and lose, see her falling asleep like all the others, only a spark in a dream makes her wake in the night, breathless, not remembering ‘the dream.’ I see Sylvia and Ian, huddled together, starving under a bridge. I want to send help, but all my stregnth is now tied to keeping the water together. 

I cant be sure about time anymore. It seems like a movie, flickering by: I watch Kris grow, age, see the hurt crease his eyes, see him fight to stay awake, and see the pain of awareness breaking him, cracking him wide open and the light pours out. But it is years, years of our lives. Is it a long, or a short time? Does that question mean anything? It must be like that time they stole me, right out of my shell. If I had any doubts about having a soul, I never did again. Kris knew, but until now he hadn’t felt it.

So ironic, as my sisters and brothers wither, age and die, I remain a changeless form.

I have so much to do. I hold fast for the memory, for all the people, the creatures, the tiny lives: each one matters, I hold fast for them. I will stand this land forever. I wait, forever. It is only an instant, it is only an eon.

I feel the birds and all the creatures of the sea get ready. They are leaving, their souls are leaving. So many souls are leaving! Is this what had to happen? The earth and I , we stand fast, feel all the life streaming upward, the animals do not fight it, they are fine, soaring up into the too hot sun, bursting from their shells in a flash of light. Their corpses rain down, empty shells of creatures who left, they went into the light with eagerness and joy.

Our people clawed each other to death over trinkets. I grieve less for them. I think of my sisters and I want to weep, but I gave all my tears to the tide.

 =====

 

_You make me feel myself_   
_Across the time and space_   
_A never-ending dance_   
_A blooming and a trance_   
_You make me feel my soul_

Kris, after:

Somewhere, somehow, after I was shattered and flung through time like the myriad stars, after I forgot everything I knew here, and knew everything, so much it could not be borne, after all that, I can feel your light, a pin point of love that I know like my own spit.

I thought sure I was dead. Maybe I am, I forgot about having a body. But then I was falling, falling, it was as if everything would all burn away, AGAIN for fucks sake, how can there be any more to feel?!

I’m falling, falling, free falling and oh, god, here comes the ground. Maybe this is it, at last. Please, may it be so. I’ve had enough.

 

She found me there, in that bed of moss. I looked up into her eyes and the eyes of the wolves, and thought “this is a nice dream.” And she lifted me without a touch and bore me to her cave.

As I sit here, sipping bitter tea and taking in the valley below, the sun is sinking. Or, rather, the planet is rolling back, spinning like she does. I have seen the whole of it, and it is terrifyingly beautiful.

We do not need to speak; our hearts are one.

We do as we must, we begin again.

 

 

=== _fin_ ===

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> **The videos:**
> 
> [Midnight City](http://youtu.be/dX3k_QDnzHE)   
>  [Reunion](http://youtu.be/DJQQrjVmQG0)   
>  [Wait](http://youtu.be/lAwYodrBr2Q)
> 
>  
> 
> **The sisters:**
> 
> Elizabeth, 14  
> Sylvia, 11  
> Apollonia, 6
> 
>  
> 
> **The brothers:**
> 
> Ian, 12  
> Kris, 9


End file.
